Materials science - understanding how the microscopic structure of matter gives rise to macroscopic properties of materials - is one of EPSRC's key research areas, with applications in fields as diverse as energy storage, electronics, fabrics and nanotechnology. EPCC helps develop a number of important simulation codes in this area such as CP2K, GROMACS, and in this project GULP, the General Utility Lattice Program.

We have been among the first researchers to take advantage of the massive amounts of computing power available on the world's fastest "Titan" supercomputer (based at Oak Ridge National Laboratory). The full machine will boast 18 thousand GPUs, and just under half of these have been made available recently. We have shown that our highly scalable "Ludwig" soft matter physics application can efficiently take advantage of at least 8192 GPUs in parallel.

In his keynote address at the EGI Community Forum, Peter Coveney described the need to combat the fragmentation of e-Infrastructure. Unlike other talks I have seen on this subject, Peter’s focus went beyond the hardware "it’s not just the tin and iron boxes but the software and - most importantly - the people". It is the human capital, the well informed and correctly trained researchers, that we need to make the most of e-Infrastructure.

Every morning as I walk to my office I pass a closed door that intrigues me. A sign on the door reads "Fluid Dynamics, Wave, wind and current flume, Towing tank." To a software guy this induces awe. Clearly some serious science is taking place behind that door and the need for emergency contact details at the bottom of the sign serves to confirm this. Behind that door lies an experimentation testbed and to my mind experimentation testbeds are cool. Why? Two words: observation and control. Testbeds enable the collection of data that support the observation of what happened during an experiment. That's great but even better is the control part. Testbeds support controlling conditions that normally cannot be controlled. How does this tyre perform in the rain? Let's switch the rain on and see!